I was wondering if anyone has compared these 2 screen materials. They both seem to be pretty comperable, Da-Lite is reflective with a 2.0 gain. M2500 is reflective with a 2.3 gain. I currently have the DaLite Pearlescent, but am curious about all of the enthusiasm I see here for the m2500.

Since no one else has responded yet, here's some maybe useful info. First, I'm still in the process of setting up my projection system so I haven't actually seen any of these fabrics in action yet. However, I do have Pearlescent and M2500 samples that I'm looking at right now under a lamp. Here are some differences. I wish I knew how they would affect a projected image!

Pearlescent
- very smooth, tiny specks of "silver", very white, not as reflective of lamp light like I thought it would be with 2.0 gain

M2500
- not as smooth, light texture, off white color, kind of silvery, very reflective of lamp light, appears to shine

Now that we know that M2500 is really 2.3 gain, I'm not sure Pearlescent is really 2.0 gain, because .3 gain should not appear as different as I'm seeing with lamp light! Of course, in a proper setup, it isn't direct near-field lamp light that is being reflected. Also, compared to DaLite High Power (2.8 gain) M2500 seems more reflective, too! The M2500 seems more like the DaLite Super WonderLite 2.5 gain.

Oh well, I guess I'm no good at judging this stuff from samples. I just looked at the Video Spectra 1.5 and it looks to be brighter than Pearlescent 2.0, too...

I also have samples from Vutec and did a side by side comparison of Pearl Brite 3.1 with M2500. The materials are very similar, same color, and they appear to have the same reflective power. More useless info for you.

I guess the only way to truly compare would be to order an m2500 sample. I will do that. Maybe you can help me out in another way. Can you verify whether light shines thru the Pearlescent material. When I installed my screen, I neglected to paint the wall behind it black. In fact, the wall behind it is white. I have read numerous posts warning about light shining thru a screen and bouncing off of the wall behind it and back onto the screen from behind, degrading the image. I can't check this out myself without removing my screen from the wall (not easy).

Light definitely shines through the Pearlescent, it some shines through the M2500, too. Not sure you have to paint the back, might be easier to just line it with black felt or some other black out material.

Today, I'm leaning to a pull down and I don't want to paint my wall a dark color so I may have to go with a material that has some blackout material already in place, like Video Spectra 1.5 but I'm not sure you can get this thicker stuff in rolled up form!

Well, it took me most of Sunday afternoon to accomplish it, but I managed to hang a piece of black felt material behind my screen. I knew I was going to seen an improvement because as I was hanging the felt, I could see where it was thru the screen. When I tried out my projector (a Sony vpl-w400q), at first the difference was noticeable, but not dramatic. Then, I recalibrated my brightness and contrast. I ended up dropping my brightness about 10 clicks. WOW!!! This has really made a dramatic improvement in my contrast, and an even more dramatic improvement in my blacks.

Don - I purchased the screen material only with grommets around the perimeter. Both sides are white. In fact, at first I accidently hung this material backwards since both sides look so similar. Since the back of your screen is black, I would guess that DaLite already lined the back of the screen with black material.